He leaned his head back against the wall. Inhaled deeply. And you didn’t. You left her intact.
He’d pleasured her, that was all.
He pushed away from the wall, paced to the end of the building. Was there anything wrong with that? Pleasuring her, as long as he didn’t use her to pleasure himself?
He hadn’t compromised her. Hadn’t even pushed a finger inside her.
He’d merely...awakened her.
And perhaps this was the answer. He’d vowed not to ruin her.
It was a vow he could still keep.
* * *
MILLIE CREPT BACK to her room with her disguise hastily put back in place—disheveled, askew, surely hiding nothing.
And barely shut the door before she caught a movement at the far end of the corridor.
She leaned against it, heart pounding, thoughts tumbling in chaos.
Winston’s hands. Her body. Deep, exquisite pleasure unlike anything she’d ever imagined.
She was losing her mind.
And Winston—he was losing his mind. Wasn’t he? Turning his back on the princess and taking Millie for a nighttime ride? Touching her intimately, when he could have been touching Katja?
It didn’t make sense.
She pulled off her wig, felt her hair immediately tumble. Went to the dressing table and tossed the wig in a limp heap next to her comb and brush.
Perhaps she’d misread Princess Katja’s intentions. Perhaps the princess was not as willing as she appeared, was toying with Winston somehow, tempting him but then withholding her favour? And so Winston had found another outlet for his passions.
And had made Millie acutely aware of hers.
There was a sensitivity between her thighs...and on the peaks of her breasts against her shirt—there’d been no fitting the binding back over them once he’d pushed it away. Deep inside, her body pulsed.
She looked at herself in the glass—messy hair tumbling on the shoulders of a man’s coat.
Miles Germain.
On the outside, perhaps. But on the inside...
A tremor of pleasure touched the secret places Winston had found.
And this had to be how men did it—rakes who lured young innocents, seduced them, coaxed them to surrender their virtues. In those moments when she’d felt as if her entire body were flying apart, she would have given him anything.
And no, clearly Winston was not fully committed to his supposed vow to change. And as for conducting himself in a moral fashion...
And now the princess was down the hall, possibly wondering if Winston would visit her room tonight. Millie knew full well that he hadn’t...arrived at his pleasure tonight. He hadn’t asked her to touch him. Hadn’t even reached for his breeches.
How would she face him in the morning? And face Princess Katja?
She reached up, gathered her hair and pulled it back, holding it there. Tightened her lips. She would face them as Miles Germain. Because she was Miles Germain. Wanted to be Miles Germain. Tonight hadn’t changed that.
Tonight hadn’t changed anything. She wouldn’t let it.
* * *
“IT WAS VERY kind of you to stop by to check on Cara,” the vicar said the next morning, after Millie had successfully avoided not only Winston and the princess but Harris and Sacks, as well.
The vicar’s brows dipped a little, and he looked at Cara in a way that said he was not at all convinced nothing was wrong.
“I’m happy to do it,” Millie said, all too glad for the distraction. She’d walked to the village this time to avoid the fuss and possible encounter with Winston that might come with ordering a carriage. But it was good—had given her plenty of time to lecture herself about last night and the imperative of keeping a safe distance from Winston. “Perhaps just a quick examination to be sure I didn’t miss anything the last time, and to be sure nothing has changed.”
“If you think it’s best,” Cara agreed, while suspicions lingered in her husband’s eyes—until something out the window snared his attention.
“It’s Winston,” he said.
Millie’s heart leaped into her throat. She looked, too, and saw Winston tying his horse to the post at the front of the garden. He came down the walk, his greatcoat swirling about his legs, and a flutter took wing in her belly.
He was admitted, entered the drawing room, and Millie’s mouth went dry.
“Edward. Cara.” Those devil eyes lit on Millie, piercing her with memories of last night. “Mr. Germain.”
“Your Grace,” Millie murmured.
“Mr. Germain has only just stopped in to make sure all is well with Cara,” the vicar told him.
“Has he? I wondered where you’d gone this morning so early,” he said to her.
He had? “I imagined you would be busy entertaining your company,” Millie said to him.
“My company has returned to London.”
For a moment Millie felt light-headed. “Has she.”
Winston turned to the vicar. “I’d hoped to have a word.”
“Of course, of course. We can talk while Mr. Germain is with Cara.”
And then Millie followed Cara upstairs, and moments later they were in Cara’s dressing room, closing the door behind them.
The princess was gone. What did that mean?
Cara turned to her the moment the door was closed. “Are you all right? You’ve gone rather flushed.”
“Quite all right. The stairs...” Millie fanned herself, focusing her attention on her blessed medical bag. “But how are you?” she asked Cara. “Has there been any change?”
“None at all,” Cara said worriedly. “Everything proceeds.”
Millie reached into her bag. “I’ve brought some herbs. To strengthen the female systems, nothing more.” She set the bottles on the table and turned to Cara. “If things continue, you won’t be able to hide the truth from your husband much longer.”
Cara wrung her hands. “I can’t think of that. Not yet.”
“You’ll have to, soon.”
“Likely not.” She put a hand on her belly. “I’ve been turning my back to him at night, pretending to fall asleep right away. The other night, he...” Her cheeks turned pink. “He ignored my sleeping and started to...” She trailed off. “I told him my supper wasn’t digesting well.”
“I wish there was more I could do,” Millie said. “But...there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong.”
“No, I suppose not.” Cara circled her hand over her belly and let it fall. She came to stand next to Millie. “Has Winston yet guessed your secret?”
And Millie felt her cheeks flush again, and she reached for her medical bag, but there was nothing to be done with it now. “I learned not long after we arrived at the estate that he has known almost from the beginning.”
“Now why does that not surprise me? I don’t suppose there could be a woman within a mile of Winston and he would not recognize it, disguise or no. And yet, he seems content to let you continue in your disguise.”
“He hired me for my medical skills. I doubt it matters to him what I look like, as long as he recovers fully.”
She felt Cara observing her and was relieved when Cara went to the window. “I’ve long felt sad for Winston, leading such a reckless life. It can’t be what he truly wants. Only look at the two of them... Winston walks as if the weight of the world is on his shoulders, do you not agree?”
There was no choice but to join Cara at the window. Below, Winston and the vicar walked together through the cemetery, disappearing around the corner of the church.
“I worry about him,” Cara said. “He hasn’t been the same since he returned from Paris. Oh, I know that’s supposed to be a good thing—Edward says it is, that Winston may finally be soul-searching, and that would be such a blessing—but the light has gone out of him.”
Millie stared out the window, barely daring to move or breathe because Cara’s tone was so soft, so concerned.
“Has it?” she managed in a tone that sou
nded anything but offhand to her own ears.
“Sometimes I’ve thought Winston’s worst qualities were born of his best. Such an amusing nature, always game for a bit of fun. When we were all young, he used to laugh at me for hesitating at whatever scheme he and Edward had cooked up, and then I would agree to join them, knowing full well I would meet Mama’s tongue when we returned.”
At that age, Millie had spent her days in the apothecary shop with Father. “What fun you must have had,” she said.
“Yes.” Cara’s voice echoed softly from years in the past.
“Were you in love with him?”
Cara was quiet so long that Millie wished she hadn’t asked.
“No,” she finally said. “Well, certainly I...I thought I was, for a time.” Outside, the two men came around the corner of the church again, headed toward the far end of the cemetery. “I think it would have been impossible not to, for any girl, really.”
Millie tensed a little, remembering last night in vivid detail.
“Winston and I...” Cara paused. “It was a very long time ago. I was young, with a foolish heart.” She sighed, looking out. “And he’d been drinking. It was all such a mistake. But I conceived. Of course, I didn’t expect Winston to offer marriage. He couldn’t, not to someone of my station. The child didn’t live. There was a problem with the birth. It was a miracle I survived myself. But after I married Edward...”
Millie didn’t need her to finish. After that birth, she’d been unable to carry a child to term.
“Oh,” Millie breathed, feeling as if a claw had hooked inside her chest. She looked at Cara. “You needn’t have told me.”
“I thought you should know, because...” Cara searched Millie’s eyes. “I’ve been worried that you might develop a tenderness for him yourself.”
“Me—” Millie’s gaze shot away from Cara and out the window before she could stop it, and of course, landed on Winston, who was facing Edward now but staring at the ground with his hands clasped behind his back.
“And below, just now, the way he looked at you...it wasn’t the way a man looks at his medic.”
A shiver ran down Millie’s spine. “You needn’t worry. There’s nothing like what you’re suggesting—everything is perfectly respectable.”
“Forgive me, I didn’t mean to suggest it wasn’t.”
“And of course, I feel compassion for Winston because of his injuries, but I have no intention of ever—” Being with him.
Like Cara had.
“I never had any intention of it, either,” Cara said now, a little sadly. “We broke Edward’s heart, the two of us. Not that Edward and I had any kind of understanding,” she added quickly. “It was nothing like that. But I knew—we both knew—that Edward was in love with me. But I suppose, Winston being the kind of man he is... No, the kind of young man he was, home from university, drinking and having his fun. And me, foolish enough to agree to go riding with him, never dreaming that once we found ourselves out in the countryside alone...” She stared quietly out the window. “We’d been such good friends for so long. And I was used to his wildness. And please don’t misunderstand. I love Edward more than life itself. Sometimes I think I always did, and Winston just blinded me the way the sun will get in your eyes and for a moment it’s all you can see.”
And looking at Winston now, Millie understood completely.
“Please don’t tell Winston I told you.”
“No—I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“I’m just afraid it’s all come back to haunt him. I can’t think why it would, now, so many years later, but to see him suddenly trying to tame his life into some semblance of decency... And just look at him now, with Edward. It’s as if suddenly he can’t bring himself to look Edward in the eye anymore.”
Millie noticed that Edward was talking, and Winston was, indeed, looking in the direction of a nearby headstone.
“There must be a way for him to see that he can have decency and have light and laughter, too,” Cara sighed. “He must have at least some friends who embrace a measure of morality. What he really needs...” She looked at Millie. “What he really needs is a wife. Someone strong enough to match him, but passionate enough to satisfy his thirst for excitement. There must be any number of women he knows who might suit. Perhaps in London. Women of his own rank, who would understand him.”
Women, Millie thought, like Princess Katja.
* * *
“DID SHE LEAVE on her own volition or did he send her away?” Millie asked Harris and Sacks that evening, after managing to avoid Winston the entire rest of the day—something she could not continue to do and expect to keep her employment.
Harris shook his head at Millie, and Sacks shrugged. “There’s no telling.”
No princess, no guests, no dancing harlots.
“I just can’t believe it.” Harris sighed, leaning back in a chair in Millie’s dressing room with a glass of wine, while Sacks sat nearby, elbows on his knees, gaze fixed on the floor.
Millie busied herself at her cabinet of medical supplies, arranging and rearranging things that had been perfectly organized to begin with, trying not to think of what might happen now that there were no...distractions left in the house.
None except you.
A nerve pulsed deep in her belly. No. She was no distraction to him. At best, she’d been an outlet of some kind. Now that there was nothing left to tempt him, perhaps his passions would cool and he would be able to commit more fully to his supposed vow.
She glanced over her shoulder just as Sacks looked up, worry in his eyes.
“Do you suppose he’s dying?”
“Dying?” Millie turned away from the cabinet. “No. He isn’t dying. He simply...desires solitude.”
And midnight horseback rides.
And talks with his vicar.
And...decency? It couldn’t be true.
“No insult intended, Mr. Germain, but I wonder whether he oughtn’t consult a London physician,” Harris said now, and Sacks nodded.
“Almost seems like ’is mind is going,” Sacks commented.
Oh, for heaven’s sake. “His mind isn’t going,” Millie said. “Has he never tried to live differently since you’ve known him? Never gone without company, or tried to...change his habits?”
It’s not as if a man can truly change, not after so many years, he’d said. Yet he was partially committed to trying? Why? Because of Cara? Because the accident had left him fearing for his soul?
Harris looked at her as if she was the one whose mind was going. “Why would he want to change his habits? He’s a man who knows what he wants. He knows how to find the joy in life and exploit it to the fullest.”
And now the light had gone out of him. At least, Cara thought so.
“He was ’imself in Paris,” Sacks said with barely a trickle of hope, glancing up, then returning his gaze to the floor. “For a few days, anyhow.”
It seemed an eternity ago.
“You ’ave very small feet,” Sacks remarked a little absently. “Slender ankles.”
Millie looked at him. Her breath stilled, and a quick retort came to her lips, but before she could speak, Sacks gave her a lopsided half smile and said, “Be mighty nimble in a prize fight, eh?”
Relief came so fast it made her feel sick. “I’d be beaten to a bloody pulp in a prize fight,” she scoffed, and turned back to her cabinet.
“I can’t understand it,” Harris said. From the corner of her eye, she saw him stand up and drain his glass. “Everything ought to have returned to normal by now.”
Sacks stood also, and they both headed for the door. “It’s more like he’s growing worse.”
And then they were gone, and the only thing growing worse was her anxiety about seeing Winston again.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“SHE LEFT ON her own volition,” came the duke’s voice from the doorway a short while later, startling her.
She turned abruptly. Winston stood leaning against the doorj
amb, his blue banyan falling carelessly over his waistcoat and breeches. Just looking at him made her feel things she knew better than to feel.
“You’ve been in your secret closet again,” she accused.
He smiled a little. “No. Only eavesdropping outside the door. So you don’t subscribe to the theory that I’m dying?”
“Not at all.”
“Nor the theory that I’m losing my mind.”
“No.” But he was making her lose her mind just by standing there watching her. Probably he was thinking of last night—how could he not be?—and how easily she had melted beneath his touch.
He wandered into the room. “If it turns out that I can change my habits, I suppose the two of them will have to grow accustomed to a quieter mode of living.”
What was he doing in here? “They won’t like it.”
The duke laughed. “Nor shall I, I daresay.” He stopped in the middle of the room and turned to her. “I thought I’d find out whether you’ve changed your mind about resigning from my employ.”
The reason he imagined he might have changed her mind snapped in the air between them.
“No,” she said briskly. “I haven’t. And it’s been nearly two days since I’ve inspected your wounds,” she went on quickly before he could respond. “It ought to be done.” And better to do it on her terms than his.
“Yes, I suppose it ought.”
“Then let’s do it now.” With the door wide open and all of the staff awake. She gestured toward a nearby chair. “You may lay your things there.”
She watched him glance at the open doorway, at the chair, at her.
“I would prefer to do it later. In my chamber, when I’m preparing for bed.” His eyes flicked over her as if he were contemplating possibilities she could only imagine.
The memory of last night burned holes through all her efforts to block it.
“Very well.” She managed the words more matter-of-factly than she thought she’d be able to.
Later. In his chamber. She’d done that exact thing a dozen times already.
“You haven’t told me whether you revealed yourself to Cara,” he said now. “Did you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
A Promise by Daylight Page 17
